a Maldição da Nai
by jacinto-tavora
Summary: We never think the words we say will ever come back to haunt us when taken literally. Be careful what you wish for.
1. The Curse

_Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies or any of it's characters, of course. All original characters are of my own mind except Clancey who is a conglomeration of different people in my life to whom I give the credit. My title, as far as putting it in Galacian was, in part, inspired by stress. It is translated into A Mother's Curse, which didn't look as pretty in English.  
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_a Maldição da Nai_

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_Part I_

_1883 - 1899_

_Somewhere in Brooklyn, 1883_

It was like a fairytale, the love they'd shared, those two. And neither the angels in Heaven, nor any being of this Earth could fathom a love so true. Together they would lay in the sands of Brighton Beach watching the day's end as small waves washed over their feet. Or lay in bed together just to enjoy ones company.

As the sun came through the tattered curtains, not a word escaped their lips. He gently brushed the single blond curl that rest on her forehead, gazing down at her admiringly. His hand moved down to her slightly rounded abdomen and she placed hers over his. He kissed her pregnant stomach and then kissed her lips.

And now, as she stood on the exact same beach -- her feet in the exact same sand -- looking out over the horizon, she could still feel his lips on hers, his touch, every fiber of his being as though he were standing next to her. She'd carried the hope with her that someday her beloved would return to her. She held onto that hope for six long months until she received a telegram confirming the death of a Mr. Joseph Molony. Her mother caught her as her legs gave way to the shock.

As she sat there, across from her mother, tears welled up in her eyes. Her dear, sweet Joseph was no more and the more she thought about it the sicker she became.

"Try not to think about it, Moira," her mother encouraged. "You'll make yourself ill."

"Ma--" Moira paused, for as she spoke the words, it was if she were asking them to herself. She looked at her newborn baby boy, who was the spitting image of his father, laying in his bassinet. "How am I to tell my baby why he hasn't a father?"

"There's plenty of time for that. As for now, try and get some sleep"

Moira Iapaluccia was very young. Possibly too young to have to deal with the situation she was facing. She was but twenty-years-young when she married Joseph Molony and birthed his son. She loved her son, dearly, but the love she had for her late husband was greater than any she had felt before or would ever feel again. It pained her to see her child with the eyes cut directly from Joseph's. So she did the only thing she felt she could.

That night she took her child from his bassinet, wrapping him in a thick blanket and put him in a basket. She traveled into town to the St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church. Moira pulled back the blanket covering the infant's face and a single tear fell from her eye. Taking him in her arms she held him tightly and kissed his forehead before placing him back into the basket. From her pocket, she pulled out a key. It was the one Joseph wore around his neck. It was the key he'd given to her as collateral for her worry when he left, when he promised he'd come back. She kissed the key and folded it into the blankets.

She made not the same promise Joseph had made to her, for she knew such things were impossible to keep. Instead, she'd said a prayer on the steps of St. Augustine that night. A prayer, that she hoped, would be fulfilled.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, protect my son that he may never know a pain so deep, nor a love so strong. Harden his heart so he may not be in despair once it's taken from him."

With that, she lay the basket on the top stair of the church and walked away never to see her son again.


	2. What's in a Name

_St. Paul Catholic Orphanage, Brooklyn 1891_

Over the next six to eight years, the exact date not being of significant importance or relevancy, Spot Conlon was raised by the hands of those much kinder and gentler than any ruffian he would have met on the street, at the St. Paul Catholic Orphanage. On the day he was left at St. Augustine, a full hour had passed before some one came to his aid; this someone not being from the church at all, but a woman of Christ nonetheless. She took the young Conlon, though his name at the time was unknown, to her superior, Sister Dorothy Gallo, Mother Superior of St. Paul. This young lady was also a nun straight out of a convent and eager to devote herself.

Sister Dorothy Gallo instructed young Maria Beine to care for the child until the age of three when he would be able to join the other children at the orphanage, and she did. She cared for the child like it were her own until his third birthday when she formerly admitted him into the orphanage for proper raising. As would all the children at St. Paul Catholic Orphanage, he would work to earn himself a trade until the age of fifteen, which is when he would be pushed out the orphanage doors to make a way for himself. But the seemingly kind ways of the orphanage were not all what they seemed. That is not to say they were all together horrible either. I suppose it would be a terrifically wondrous way for one who did not mind having their way of life chosen for them, but for those far more ambitious than the former, the path was short of a lifetime sentence. Spot was one ever so ambitious.

He got into his records with little to no trouble at all. Everything was alphabetized. He was under 'U' for

'Unknown'. There wasn't much in the small, broken shoe box that was his past. No questions were answered for him. There was no information on his mother, nor father -- where he had been born or even a name. The only two things inside didn't look to have any meaning: a brass key tied onto a piece of rawhide string and a quilt too small to hang around his shoulders. He pocketed the key and folded the quilt, noticing a word stitched into one of the squares: 'Conlon'.

xxx

Conlon. The name echoed through his mind as he walked, aimlessly, through the streets of Brooklyn. It was now late afternoon, around four o'clock. Five hours it had been since he left St. Paul. He'd gone east and continued to walk until he hit a dead end, then he would take a right (or left, whichever was called for) and continue on. He took the key from his pocket to examine it more closely. He had left the quilt, thinking it too big to keep inconspicuous as he was leaving. To his surprise, no one seemed to noticed him walking out the door, though there were many around. Conlon was snapped out of his thoughts the second he felt a heavy pressure on his chest and found himself on the ground.

"Sorry about that, laddie." The voice extended a hand. "Didn't see ya."

"You didn't see me? What are you, blind?" He followed the arm up to the face of a boy who looked to be no older than himself.

When Conlon didn't take the boy's hand, the boy grabbed his wrist and pulled him up to his feet.

"You should pay attention to where you walk around here," he started, walking past Conlon. "People aint as nice as me." He grinned, shoving his hands into his pocket with a wink, before turning around and walking off.

Conlon stared at the strange boy. "Yeah, whatever." He had bumped into _him_ and he should watch where he was going? Conlon took a couple steps forward before realizing the key was no longer in his hand. He quickly checked his pockets, then looked where he fell on the ground -- nothing. Then it hit him. He took off at a killer pace in the opposite direction, looking for the boy who had knocked him down. The kid had to be extremely fast or else had someone waiting to pick him up because he was nowhere in sight. Conlon stopped to catch his breath by a tree, when he heard a voice from above him.

"Looking for me?" Conlon looked up to see the boy sitting on a thick branch, his back up against the trunk. He swung the key in circles from its string. "You're pretty fast."

"Just you wait asshole, I'll show you how fast I am."

"And how. That's big talk for such a small--"

Before he could get out the last of his words, Conlon jumped up and grabbed the boy's foot that was dangling from the branch and pulled him to the ground. Though not extremely high, falling from the branch he sat on gave the boy's head quite a spin. He grabbed Conon's leg causing him to fall down next to him. The two immediately went at it, rolling around on the ground, one slugging the other whenever the chance came. Luckily, before too much damage was done to either, they were each pulled up by their suspenders. Not so luckily, by a cop.

"Hey, hey, break it up, you two." He noticed the key hanging from the string in the boy's hand. Throughout the whole ordeal he managed to keep the key tightly in his fist. The officer snatched it out of his hand. "And who'd you steal this from?"

It wasn't possible for someone of his age and class to have such a nice key. It was well polished and shined. Officer O'Neal didn't think it belonged to any door. It looked to be a kind of antique.

"It's mine," he answered, defensively, still a little winded from the tussle.

Officer O'Neal scoffed. "Prove it."

"I gave it to him."

Both eyes turned to Conlon who had until that moment stayed quiet. "Then who'd you steal it from."

"It was a gift."

"From who."

"Me dear mother," he said sincerely, leaning back against the tree with his arms crossed.

The cop looked skeptical. "Why give it to him?"

"He's my uncle." Both Officer O'Neal and the boy looked at Conlon in disbelief. Conlon thought fast of something else to say, but didn't stumble over the words or take back what he'd all ready said. "It's a family heirloom. It was my grandfather's. He passed it down to my mother and when my mother died she passed it down to me. Now I'm giving it to him. It just seemed like the right thing to do."

The boy's eyes got wide as he faked sadness and looked up at the officer. "My only sister."

It was hard to tell if he bought it or not. Officer O'Neal looked as if the wonders of the universe had just been explained to him, but it was only for a second. His superior attitude returned and he smirked. "Looks like she don't need it no more. It's been requisitioned."

Conlon looked over to the boy, half worried, half angry. "What's that mean?"

"Passed down to him by you," he explained.

Officer O'Neal put the key in his pocket. "Just remember, I got my eye on you two."

"I got my eye on you, too," Conlon mumbled, before turning to walk away.

"Hold it a minute, Spot." He stopped.

Conlon turned, looking at the strange boy. "What did you call me?" It wasn't a tone of offense, just of curiosity.

"You got me out of a tight spot with that guy," said the boy, ignoring the question. "You hungry?"

Conlon eyed him suspiciously.

"I'm in debt to you," he explained. "Let me buy you lunch."

It wasn't until the boy mentioned lunch that he even realized just how hungry he really was, so he accepted. The young boy took him to a tiny diner adjacent to where they were standing, where he purchased a sandwhich as long as his forearm and much thicker, with a tall cup of milk. Spot ate hungrily. The boy eyed him from time to time not making any real movement or saying anything. He pushed the cup toward him telling him to slow down or else he'd choke.

"You don't mind me calling you Spot, do you?" he asked after Spot slowed down. "You're a small one and none too clean, although I suspect you haven't been on the street long."

"You'd suspect right."

This boy had to be the oddest character Spot had ever laid eyes on. Not only did he talk weird, but the way he carried himself was different from what Spot was used to seeing within the walls of the orphanage. He didn't mind his new name seeing that he hadn't known his old one. He wondered, though, how this boy could call him dirty. True, Spot wasn't the cleanest thing in New York, but this boy looked to be tanned simply from dirt. His hands, though not completely white, were a lot more pale than his face. He wore a white rag tied around his head that came just above his chocolate brown eyes, and the brown hair that was showing from his sideburns seemed to be completely black.

"Clancey Relles," he introduced. "Where're you off to?"

"Nowhere."

"Got a home?"

"No."

"Money?"

"No."

"I suppose you aint got any family neither. Is your mother really deceased?" Noticing the look of question on Spot's face Clancey grinned and clarified, "You know, passed?"

"Hell if I know. Never knew her."

"And believable!" Clancey smiled. "You'd make a fine cozener and since you have nowhere to stay I'm gonna offer you lodging. It's better than sleeping out on the streets, believe me. You need someone to look out for you."

Spot swallowed the rest of his milk. "I got someone."

Clancey's brows furrowed in confusion. "Do you?"

"Yeah," he smiled, "an uncle."


End file.
